Phinsider Question Of The Day 03/21/2021

At the end of last week and over the weekend the news broke that the NFL had renewed most of their contracts with the various networks that broadcast their games. It came of no shock to anyone that the NFL managed to once again double the amount of money that they are getting from the most profitable sports contracts with television that there are and will not earn somewhere in the range of 110 Billion, with a B, dollars over an 11 year period. This is approximately double the amount they were making from the previous contracts. This means more money for the salary cap in the future and thus more money for the players but even more money for the already very rich owners. The one trend that began in the previous package of deals that is carrying on even more so into this one is the streaming of games.

Streaming is an inevitable evolution of the internet and it’s intertwining with entertainment that was more or less created in its current form by what Netflix did and then was copied and duplicated in so many variations I could not likely even list all of the options now available. The good thing about streaming, in general, is that it gives the consumer choices, more choices than we have ever had in the past as to how to receive our entertainment as well as what we receive. The concern I have with what the NFL is doing this is as they move more games to different streaming platforms it requires the NFL fan to then subscribe to more services that they might not otherwise want, which is of course exactly why the different streaming services want a piece of the NFL. The cord-cutting revolution began as a cost-cutting measure by many and saw a huge amount of Americans abandon traditional cable and satellite companies for much cheaper streaming services. But now many “cable cutters” are no doubt asking themselves if they are still saving money as they have to continue to subscribe to more and more services just to follow a single sports league.

There is still the option of NFL Sunday Ticket that as of now is still the sole property of DirecTV. But this contract too is up for renewal in the next couple of years and the prevailing belief is that the NFL will be looking to split the rights to this service between more than one partner. This will possibly mean that those of us like me that are forced to pay for a satellite service that I don’t even watch that much just so that I can have access to all of the Miami Dolphins games due to living outside of the local broadcast area might have another option and I can finally tell DirecTV to shove it and come get their stupid dish off my house. But will the cost go down? As with everything else I might not have to pay a monthly bill for a slew of channels that I don’t watch or want any longer but I will still have to most likely, on an annual basis pay north of $300 to someone to watch my favorite NFL team.

So as much as most of us here, most especially those of us that do not live in the local broadcast area for our favorite NFL team, might complain and even sometimes state that one more thing and we are done, the truth is if we are on this site then we are without a doubt a diehard fan and will pay what we have to pay to continue to follow our team and sadly the NFL knows this. But the NFL cannot survive, at least at the level that they survive today, raking in the absurd amounts of cash that only seems to continually increase with each new year if they start to turn away the not-so-die-hard fans. I do not know what the split is between the two is but I do know that those fans that could take it or leave it if it becomes too complicated and or way too expensive to keep up with their favorite team are to walk away it will cost the NFL billions down the road. No one is going to overpay for a product that does not turn into either direct or indirect revenues.

So tonight’s Phinsider Question Of The Day is do you think the NFL is just doing what they have to do to keep up with the times or do you think that if they continue to splinter off the packages more and more, making it both more complicated and more expensive for NFL fans to keep up with their team or teams that they are overplaying their hand and will in the long term cost themselves both fans and money?

As this is a nightly post (when there is not a live game thread) also feel free to not only discuss the question/topic of the day but to use this as a live thread where the rules are pretty wide open, and you can discuss nearly anything so long as your continue to follow the site rules. Speaking of site rules the three rules that come with a zero-tolerance policy are that we do not allow ANY personal attacks against your fellow ‘Phins fan or even a troll from another site. Flag it and walk away, do not get yourself banned over another’s stupidity. Beyond that, there is no discussion or even references to anything remotely religious or political. There are plenty of sites for those discussions elsewhere but this is not and never will be one of them.